Gener8

Fast transfers enable collaboration for leading 3D conversion house

Gener8 uses Aspera for speedy collaboration with 3rd party vendors

Gener8 is an industry leader in 3D stereo conversion services for the entertainment industry. With many of Hollywood’s top studios among the company’s clientele, Gener8 has provided its services for an impressive selection of top tier Hollywood films, including Iron Man 3, Prometheus, and The Amazing Spider-Man.

Gener8 relies on Aspera to transfer large video files to and from clients as well as to move files between third-party vendors via Cumul8. The seamless integration of Aspera’s patented fasp™ transport technology into the state-of-the-art Cumul8 management and analytics system delivers speed, ease-of-use and efficiency for their customers.

For 3D conversion projects, Gener8 uses Aspera to pull in visual effects composites and all the associated elements from several visual effects houses. After files are uploaded to the inbound watch folder and ingested into the pipeline. Gener8 then outsources pieces of the projects to third-party vendors. Gener8 simply provides Aspera account logins for each vendor, and they can immediately log into the system via the Aspera Connect Web-browser Plugin and begin uploading and downloading files.

The Aspera integration within the Cumul8 API allows Gener8 to automate file movement through each step of the process while Cumul8 tracks the piece-by-piece progress of projects through the pipeline. For major projects, VFX vendors set up automated transfers to send in pieces of content to the Aspera server housed at Gener8’s stereo conversion house, at which point automated processing is triggered.

With the same assets, same Internet connection, and same machines doing the transfer, Gener8 experiences transfer speeds around 6 times faster with Aspera than they experienced with SFTP. Fast transfer speeds mean fast collaboration between Gener8 and outsourced vendors, so projects can be completed and returned to clients with the quickest turnover possible. Aspera provides a simple, intuitive user interface, so Gener8 doesn’t need to provide instructions or go back and forth with the clients and vendors before they can get started using Aspera.